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Another great post, Michael. I have my own blog, and so I am a content creator although lately I have been more of a content aggregator in ‘Best of the Web’ where I collect at least 10 great blog posts every week, and write an excerpt from those posts for the busy executive who doesn’t have the time to scroll through the Internet looking for great content. I agree with the 90%:9%:1% pyramid and believe that you and other creators make the 1% of the apex. For that reason, I am sharing your blog post in ‘Best of the Web’ http://bit.ly/j3bestweb, Facebook http://ow.ly/cMCDn, Google+ http://bit.ly/V0Mtov and now Pinterest http://bit.ly/RxRgtG. Thanks, Michael.

Yes, marketing will be changed very much. Actually I totally support your view of more content work – and we talk about real content like your blog right? :) Actually the latest trend mixing content and advertizing let me doubt if all marketers will agree. But overall I think we have to redefine what marketing should do as it is becoming an IT based activity very fast so we face an industrialization here as well. But as we know we deal with humans (as long as robots don’t overtake in the virtual world that is) and simply using tools won’t help. Content is the answer, yes. I use more context but good content is always in context so probably we mean the same.

Thanks for the support Kai. I agree with you that we are seeing leading edge marketers talk about content while the rest defend traditional techniques still.

US magazine Newsweek announced just yesterday that it will stop printing in December since ad revenues are down 50% in 5 years. US newspaper ad revenue is down 400% in 3 years to levels not seen since 1950. The new world has already left most businesses behind.

The winners will be the ones who understand that content (in the right context yes) is their new product and winning share of voice is the new battleground.

It also relates back to “give before you receive” when it comes to commenting. No one (I know), wants to read an ad when they go to a company blog. If the company contributor does it right, it should read something like”Collect 5 box ends from our detergent, get a free box of detergent. Print this coupon from our site. Offer only available to our website customers”. You want to see how fast word and website popularity spreads with this type of approach. The company can afford this comment/promotion because there are no distrubution costs, and their product “sells itself” Its funny how few companies take this direction, pity.

Michael, I think you’re dead on. I spent a lot of time building a little deeper insight into what this pyramid looks like and how it works. I called it The Influence Pyramid. (You can see more about it here: http://tippingpointlabs.com/2010/05/10/the-influence-pyramid-understanding-and-dissecting-communities/ ) Essentially, content creators influence Prosumers (people who seed conversation) who then influence consumers (who merely read – or consume) the conversation and content but don’t actively participate. Great article! - Drew